Quite Contrary

by Foreign Service Officer Richard Roberts

[tellemonstar]

Full review here.

I didn’t particularly like Quite Contrary. In part due to my having expectations about the book that weren’t met (because they were pretty opposite to where the author was going) and in part because it was an uncomfortable read.

Mary is one heck of a brat and this did not endear her to me. In fact, I kind of wanted the Big Bad Wolf to eat her for the first half of the book. Later on in the book (too late, in my opinion) we find out why Mary is so bratty and mean, and that made me like her a little better, because I could understand her attitude. Previously there had been no explanation or even a hint of one as to why her personality was so negative.

I did like the originality in many of the fairy tales that Mary travelled through (or broke). They all had elements of existing fairy tales, and each one got a bit more sinister as the story went along which gave the book a whole extra star really. The author didn’t rely completely on existing fairy tales to pad out the story, but used flashs of existing fables, myths and legends to build his own.